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Table of Contents
RAMSHACKLE HOUSE
HULBERT FOOTNER
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1922 By Hulbert Footner.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com
CHAPTER I
THE CANOEIST
Broome’s Point proper is a crescent-shaped spit of sand separating the mouth of the Pocomico River from the waters of Chesapeake Bay. The end of the spit is decorated with one of those odd structures that our lighthouse service is so partial to, an octagonal house mounted on spreading, spindly piles, the whole looking uncommonly like a spider. The Broome estate comprises all the high ground back of the spit for upwards of four miles up the bay shore and a mile along the river. The mansion stands proudly on a bold bluff overlooking the river mouth. It is one of those square packing-boxes with a “cupalow” so popular with the builders of the sixties. It has never been painted since the first time and its once white face is streaked with rust from the gutters like the marks left by tears on dirty cheeks. One of the snuggest anchorages on the coast is under the bank upon which it stands. The river mouth itself forms a great basin three miles across in which all the navies of the world might ride. One shore of it is as wild and deserted as the other. A mile or so up the river lies Absolom’s Island with its oystering village, connected with the hinterland by a causeway.
On Decoration Day there was a battle-ship lying in the river. As Pen Broome flew in and out of the big house upon her interminable chores she had a distant view of the holiday crowds on the green common of the Island. Black and white splotches represented the game of ball that was going on between the island boys and the sailors and black dots stood for the automobiles of week-end trippers from the great world. Later Pen knew there had been a church supper under the big linden trees alongside the parsonage, and at night a dance up the county. Ordinarily Pen was not given to resenting her lot; she was too busy. She had no personal interest in sailors nor in the island boys, and very little in the county people, her own sort. But to-day the spectacle of holiday-making brought an unbearable gnawing to her breast. She was twenty-four.
Pen was no tame and pathetic figure. She was the sort of youngster that is made savage by pain. Consequently next morning there was thunder in the air at Broome’s Point. Pen’s storms were rare and rather terrible. They cleared the air wonderfully. Perhaps it would have been better for that slack household if they had broken oftener. Black Aunt Maria Garner seeing her mistress’ face, rolled the whites of her eyes apprehensively, and propelled her unwieldy bulk about the kitchen with a surprising celerity. She said cooingly:
“Honey, Ah’m gwine beat yo’ up nice li’l cheese soufflé fo’ yo’ lunch!”
“Go along with you, Aunt Maria!” cried Pen with an exasperated laugh. “I’m not going to be taken in with your cheese soufflés! If you want to please me get your work done! Look at this kitchen!”
“’Deed honey, Ah done come at sun-up this mawnin’. Deed I doggone swear did I!”
“What good is your coming at sun-up or sun-down if you only rock your fat body on a chair and smoke that filthy pipe!”
“Miss Penny, honey, I got the mos’ awfulles’ misehy.…”
“That’s enough of your misery. When I came in that door you started to move as spry as a kitten after its tail!”
At this moment the head of Theodo’, Aunt Maria’s sixth or thereabouts, appeared outside the kitchen window. Aunt Maria unseen by Pen silently and frantically waved him back, but his momentum was too great. He came on in with his foolish, engaging grin.
Pen whirled around.
“What are you doing in the house at this hour?” she demanded.
Theodo’s face turned ashy, but he still grinned. “Ah… Ah jes’ come fo’ watah,” he stammered.
“And left your horses standing in the field!” stormed Pen. “You don’t want water. It’s only because you can’t keep your trifling mind on your work for more than half an hour at a time. To-morrow is the first of June and you haven’t got your ploughing done! And everybody else’s corn is six inches high! Go back to your horses and let me hear no more of water!”
Theodo’ slunk out.
But the storm did not really break until Pen, going to make her butter, found the broken paddle of her churn still unmended. She marched back through the kitchen, through the big pantry into the dining-room bearing the broken paddle like Nemesis. Aunt Maria’s vast body heaved in silent chuckles.
“Boss gwine catch it now fo’ sho’,” she murmured, and waddling silently through the pantry, put her ear to the crack of the dining-room door.
She was not disappointed. Within the dining-room lightning played about the startled head of the elder Pendleton Broome. And indeed young Pen was sorely tried. Her father was an amiable incompetent who frittered away his time on a dozen unprofitable hobbies while his estate fell into ruin about him. Not his fault entirely of course, for it was a hopeless job to keep up twenty-five hundred acres without any money. And not an acre of it salable. To get the smallest things done about the place required an expenditure of energy from Pen sufficient to have won campaigns. For weeks her father had been promising to mend her churn. Even with a whole churn she made butter under the greatest difficulties, because by the time he had got round to repairing the ice house it was too late to put up ice. She reminded him of that now…aand of other things.
Pendleton Broome essayed to pull the rags of his dignity about him…without much success. He was one of these half-hearted little corpulent